1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for displaying serially stacked products, and more particularly to a device which automatically advances the products to one end of the display by means of at least one divider member with a spring-loaded pusher plate movably attached thereto.
2. Description of the Related Art
Merchandising practice requires that retail products be displayed in a well organized manner, and that merchandise be readily accessible and attractively displayed to the consumer. It is desirable that products stacked on a shelf be squarely aligned one behind the other, be oriented to face the consumer, be rotated to maintain freshness and be positioned so that the products are towards the front of the shelf. It is also desirable to display the products attractively thereby encouraging consumers to examine and purchase the merchandise.
In a typical wholesale or retail establishment serially stacked products are usually placed upon a shelf for display. Setting up and maintaining the display is usually done manually. The products must be carefully organized, rotated, stacked and aligned. The removal of merchandise by the consumer leaves a space at the front of the shelf with the remaining products towards the rear being difficult to view and access. Furthermore, the consumer is likely to move the products around so that the items are no longer neat and orderly but instead are haphazardly arranged, as a result of which many items no longer have the product name facing the front of the display. The merchandiser must continually inspect and rearrange the displayed products, which is time consuming and costly. It is therefore advantageous to have a display device which maintains stacked products in a neat and organized manner while automatically moving the merchandise toward the front as products are removed.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the modular merchandise display system comprises at least one pusher tray assembly having a base tray or floor portion, a product pusher slidably disposed within an elongated slot in the base and biased in a direction toward the front of the tray via a tension spring, an integrated side panel (or divider wall) extending vertically upward from one of the sides of the base, and adjustment wings extending horizontally outward from the side of the tray opposing the side panel. The base includes an upper transverse slot in an upper side of the bottom adjacent the front of the pusher tray assembly, and a lower transverse slot in the underside of the bottom tray and spaced behind the upper slot.
The pusher tray assembly includes a plurality of transverse adjustment slots for receiving the adjustment wings of an adjacent pusher tray assembly. Protrusions extend into the adjustment slots from the underside of the bottom tray for engaging one of a plurality of alignment holes in the adjustment wings of the adjacent pusher tray assembly for securing adjacent pusher tray assemblies together and for allowing the spacing between dividers of adjacent pusher tray assemblies to be varied to accommodate products of varying sizes. The pusher tray assembly further comprises a plurality of end cap adjustment slots for receiving end cap adjustment wings on an end cap. Protrusions extending into the end cap adjustment slots from the bottom of the pusher tray assembly engage corresponding holes in the adjustment wings on the end cap for securing the end cap to an adjacent pusher tray assembly. The disposition of protrusions and alignment holes can be reversed without departing from the scope of this disclosure.
A front rail, preferably an extrusion, is mounted on the shelf for the display system, and includes an angled front face and an upwardly extending flange or protrusion. The flange engages the lower slot of one or more pusher tray assemblies for positioning the pusher tray assemblies with respect to the front rail. The end cap is secured to the last pusher tray assembly for enclosing the remaining open side thereof. The adjustment wings of the end cap are received by the end cap adjustment slots in the pusher tray, and engage the pin-like protrusions at the determined spacing for the product being displayed.
A front clear panel is slidably inserted into the upper slot of adjacently assembled pusher trays for preventing forward movement of the product so they are not pushed out of the display system by the product pushers. In an alternative embodiment, the front clear panel can be eliminated by providing the angled front face of the front rail with at least a transparent upper portion which would alternatively serve as the product stopper to prevent products from being pushed out of the display system. In this embodiment, the entire front face of the front rail could also be transparent, thus enabling the disposition of product description and price information either on or behind the clear angled front surface of the front rail.
The pusher tray assembly and the end cap are provided with break off points for enabling easy adjustment of the length of the respective pusher tray display system in accordance with the size of the shelf on which it is to be mounted. When the pusher tray assembly is shortened by breaking off the bottom and side panel along one of the break off points, a push (stop) pin is inserted in a corresponding hole in the bottom to prevent the product pusher from being pushed rearwardly beyond the shortened rear end on the assembly and becoming detached from the mounting slot in the bottom. The break off points provide a xe2x80x9cone size fits allxe2x80x9d configuration of the modular display system and thereby reduces the cost of manufacturing the same.
The various features of novelty which characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of the disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages, and specific objects attained by its use, reference should be had to the drawing and descriptive matter in which there are illustrated and described preferred embodiments of the invention.